Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

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jayles

Member Since

August 12, 2010

Total number of comments

748

Total number of votes received

225

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Latest Comments

“up on top” vs. “up top”

  • May 30, 2014, 12:21am

The US version "met with" clearly suggests a meeting.
The Brit version is not so clear; it could have been a chance encounter:
"Hey there Harold!"
"Ike! Fancy meeting you here".

“Between you and I...”

  • May 27, 2014, 8:32pm

And "under four eyes" crops up on google books, sometimes without explanation:
"this time Ngabehi Secadirana himself, disguised as a servant came under the cloak of darkness to the resident to tell him under four eyes what monstrous plot..."
One must wonder if this is just an example of poor translation though.
But it certainly avoids all the messy grammar issues.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=under+four+eyes%2C+between+four+eyes%2C+en+tete+a+tete&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cunder%20four%20eyes%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbetween%20four%20eyes%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cen%20tete%20a%20tete%3B%2Cc0

“Between you and I...”

  • May 27, 2014, 8:14pm

On google books "between you and I" does crop up but much less frequently than "between you and me" For instance:
"Morality is a direct encounter between You and I."

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=between+you+and+I%2C+between+you+and+me&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cbetween%20you%20and%20I%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbetween%20you%20and%20I%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBetween%20you%20and%20I%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cbetween%20you%20and%20me%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbetween%20you%20and%20me%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBetween%20you%20and%20me%3B%2Cc0

As an aside the phrase "between you and me" meaning "in confidence" is rendered as "between four eyes" (Négy szem közt) in Hungarian, and "unter vier Augen" in German.

Team names — singular or plural

  • May 26, 2014, 2:57pm

@WW The marking schema for IELTS writing band 8 (page 23)

http://ielts.org/PDF/IELTS_Guide_For_Teachers_BritishEnglish_Web.pdf

says:
"The majority of sentences are error-free" (using a plural verb)

Right now I cannot think of a context where I would regard "The majority of sentences is error-free" as normal, or standard.

However "a majority of students is ,," does crop up although seemingly rare in books.
When it comes to talking about votes/voting, majority is often used with a singular verb.

Team names — singular or plural

  • May 26, 2014, 2:16pm

@WW Thanks.
I stumbled on a slip-up re "a number of" - the verb here refers to "increase" not number:
"There has been an increase in the number of incidents recently."

Unfortunately this type of sentence is very necessary to fulfil Task A (the graph description) in IELTS. It is also best to avoid "a lot of" which sounds rather informal, and substitute phrases like "a great deal of" or "a large number of", or much/many.

Incidentally there seems to be a rule of thumb for "number of":
"a number of * " takes a plural verb
"the number of * " takes a singular verb.

A careful look on ngrams seems to support this. (as do your examples in previous post)

“It is I” vs. “It is me”

  • May 25, 2014, 9:50pm

Perhaps it would be more helpful to focus on real life examples. The following come from published books:
"It is I, Sea Gull;": Valentina Tereshkova, First Woman in ...
It is I who have chosen you: an autobiography
it is I who am responsible for my character.
In fact the phrase "it is I who..." or "it is I that.." is by far the commonest way "it is I" is used. Or even:
(Josephine Klein - 2003 )
It is I whom you delight in ... It is I whom you serve; it is I whom you long for, whom you desire; it is I whom you mean; it is I who am all. Twelfth Revelation,

"it is I." appears in "Life is Tough, But God is Faithful: How to See God's Love ..."

All That We See and Do - Page 117: It is I, Nordia. It is I. It is OK. I am that powerful. I'll show My might...


And lastly:

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=TWtZLoR9Q10C&pg=PA99&dq=%22it+is+i%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WZ2CU-GnM426lQXC6ICoBw&redir_esc=y

Clearly an amazing example of how to teach modern English idiom.

Team names — singular or plural

  • May 25, 2014, 7:40pm

Team names — singular or plural

  • May 25, 2014, 7:40pm